The House on the Hill

Chapter Three

Notes: Is it Raftel still, or are we all going with Laugh Tale now, spelling wise? Let me know so I can correct it if need be. No warnings

Nami woke just as the first trickles of the pinkish-orange light of dawn began to filter in through the curtains. She stretched her arms over her head and yawned, her back cracking with the movement. She turned on her side and caught a glimpse of Usopp's watching shining in the early morning sun. 8:42. That's the time we entered the mansion yesterday. She looked up at the window and frowned. "It should be lighter out," she muttered to herself as she sat up and carefully lifted herself off Law's coat.

Sometime during the night, she had somehow manoeuvred herself onto Law's coat, which Usopp had placed on the floor under himself. She smiled down at him before rolling her eyes at the sleeping boy beside her. If Nami needed to guess, she would say that not much night watching happened last night. Law and Sanji both seemed to be in just as deep a sleep as Usopp. In fact, a cannonball could probably blast through the window and they would likely sleep through it, from the looks of them.

She shivered and rubbed her numb hands over her shaking body. It felt as if she had slept in the snow for the entire evening. It was freezing!

Nami stole a peek over her shoulder to the fireplace. While it was freezing in the room, the fire was still going strong. She shakily stood and walked over to the fire and sat on the marble step in front of it. The warmth from the fire did little to chase away the cold that had settled in her bones.

With the fire going this strong, the room should be much warmer, the girl mused to herself. Maybe one of the boys let the fire go out and relit it recently?

Once Nami had the feeling back in her extremities she stood and slowly made her way over to the other side of the room to look at the books lined up in the bookshelf. If she was up, she might as well read something and let the others sleep a bit more. She could keep watch for a bit.

Nami sunk into the chair at the desk by the bookshelf and crossed her legs before she began the book in her hand. The book was interesting but after about forty-five minutes of reading she started to feel unbearably warm and the words on the pages began to bleed together.

She wiped her forehead with the sleeve of Usopp's sweater before pulling off the item completely and throwing it over the back of the chair. Beads of sweat were running down her neck and making her arms, stomach and legs sticky. She stood then and walked over to the window to try and get some refuge from the heat. Wanting to take a look outside while she cooled down she pushed open the curtain and gasped.

The clouds from last night were gone, leaving behind a gorgeous blue sky and the brightly shining sun. The sun, which had clearly just been rising not even an hour before, was at the highest point in the sky, making it noon- or very close to it.

"What the hell?" she muttered to herself, letting the curtain fall back into place. She glanced over at the fire, a sinking feeling in her chest. She walked over to the fireplace and kneeled down to count the logs next to it. Nine. We put one in last night. If one of the boys had gotten up and replaced a log we should have eight now. That means no one relit the fire last night. Her frown deepened. That would mean that the fire had been roaring as it was for nearly 16 hours.

16 hours, she thought to herself. How? She thought back to the evening before. It was possible that she misread the sky- it had been extremely cloudy, but the deep feeling of dread that filled her body told her differently.

She leaned over and roughly shook Usopp's shoulder. "Usopp, get up," she urged her friend. He merely mumbled but didn't respond otherwise. She tried Law and Sanji next, but neither of them responded to her either. Why couldn't she wake them up?

Suddenly, something had slammed into the door and began to rattle the doorknob, intent on getting into the room. She gasped, her heart in her throat. She tried to take deep breaths to calm herself but the room was becoming suffocating in its heat. She tried Sanji again, shaking him and slapping his hip, "Sanji, you need to get up!"

Rattle, Rattle, Rattle!

He made neither sound nor movement.

Rattle, Rattle, Rattle!

Whatever took up residence at the door was not leaving and was continuing to rattle the doorknob relentlessly. Something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. None of them should be in this deep of asleep, they weren't heavy sleepers by any stretch of the imagination.

Rattle, Rattle, Rattle!

There is no way 16 hours had passed, it just wasn't possible.

Rattle, Rattle, Rattle!

But no, in this house, it was possible. Everything she had seen yesterday proved that.

Suddenly, there was silence. Whatever was at the door had finally gone away- or so Nami had thought. As soon as the rattling stopped, there was the sound of something hard and heavy slamming against it. She wasn't entirely certain that the door would hold against that type of abuse.

Bang, Bang, Bang!

As she eyed the door she slowly made her way over to the chair where she left Usopp's sweater and pulled her Climatact out of the pocket.

Bang, Bang, Bang!

Shakily, she began to put together her Climatact as she focused on forcing her breathing and frantic heart to settle. Several times she dropped some of the pieces, the clanging noise of the metal hitting the wooden floor resounding through her already shaky body, but was finally able to put it together after her fourth time trying.

Bang, Bang, Bang!

Nami tightly gripped the weapon in front of her body and slowly walked towards the door. There was no other choice, she would have to defend them herself and it would be a lot harder to defend them if she were to get trapped in the room with whatever is on the other side of that door. She stopped with her hand on the handle and closed her eyes tightly. She didn't want to fight what was on the other side of the door, not alone.

Slowly, she counted to ten before turning to look back at her friends. They are always going out of their way to protect her, now it was her turn to protect them.

If they wanted any chance of getting out of there and back to the Sunny, she would need to get through this on her own. She took one last deep breath and opened the door, flipping the lock so that the door would lock behind her. Slowly, she pulled it open wider, the screeching of the door's hinges resonating through the corridors. With her head held high, she stepped out into the hall, ready to face whatever was out there.

o0o

"Luffy, are you sure this is a good idea?" Chopper asked from his spot on Luffy's shoulders. He didn't like the smell of the area, something was definitely off about it. It was almost as if the path were warning them off. It would explain why he hasn't seen an animal since about a mile out of the village. "I don't like the smell of this place."

Luffy laughed his carefree laugh and reached over to rub Chopper's head. "It'll be fun, Chopper! Just think of all the cool things we can see!"

Chopper gave him a dubious look before he sighed and propped his chin on the top of Luffy's hat. There wasn't much he could do about it now, at any rate.

Zoro was on their left side, his one good eye scanning the area for any sign of trouble. His eyebrows were scrunched together, as if he too, sensed that something wasn't right. But if he sensed something wrong he didn't voice any concerns.

Robin stood on their other side, talking about the intel that she had gathered from villagers before they had left. If she sensed something wrong, she didn't mention it either. Franky took up the back of the group, looking as carefree as Luffy. He had his fingers interlocked behind his neck as he looked up at the sky studying the moving clouds.

"According to the bartender, the mansion has been here for as long as anyone could remember, but no one knows who it belongs to. Some swear up and down that it just appeared on top of this hill one day." Robin said as she looked across the long winding road ahead of them, "Others were saying that the people who go explore the mansion go missing and never come back.

"I asked some of them to elaborate, to give names of people or more details, but when pressed they would get this blank look in their eyes. I think they were under some sort of memory charm." Robin didn't bother to mention that their reactions were the reason she decided to come up to the mansion. If someone placed a memory charm on those people, there must be something hidden at the mansion, something big.

Finally, after another hour of walking down the dirt path, the mansion stood before them in all its glory. Chopper lifted his chin from Luffy's head, "this is it?" he asked dubiously. Sure, it wasn't the prettiest place in the world. The paint was peeling, there were bars on the windows and the lawn was overrun, but you would expect that from a house that was supposedly abandoned.

"It's not very interesting," Franky said in a bored tone. "I could have stayed behind and finished some modifications on the ship if this was what we were going to see."

"I wouldn't judge the book by its cover just yet," Robin said cryptically. Sure, it looked harmless, but some of the most dangerous things in the world did.

Chopper sniffed the air, frowning. "do you guys smell that?"

"Smell what?" Zoro asked, he was eyeing the mansion, scanning across all of the windows and the front door. From the corner of his eye, he saw a curtain on the second-floor move, and there was a flash of orange hair before it disappeared. He narrowed his eye, but there was no other movement so he chalked it up to a trick of the light.

"It smells funny, like death and staleness, stale death?"

Robin hummed and motioned towards the fruit tree grove on the other side of the grounds. "The 'death' you smell is likely coming from the garden as no one is tending it."

Chopper looked and sure enough, there was plenty of rotted fruit on the floor. "And the stale smell would likely be from the mansion not having the windows open for a long time." She reached up and patted Chopper on the head, "it means it's empty."

Chopper's frown deepened. What he was smelling was not from the fruit grove- no rotted fruit smelt that close to what death smelt like. However, before he could voice his concerns there was a creaking noise that pierced through the air. He and the others looked up just in time to see the front door swing open. "Although…" Robin muttered while she eyed the door curiously.

Zoro had tensed and pulled out one of his swords, and even Franky was more on alert, standing up straight. Luffy however...

Chopper screamed as Luffy bolted forward, his hooves gripping to the captain's hat as the rubber man ran up the stairs and through the front door before anyone could say a word. "Luffy-bro! We need to stay together!" Franky called, walking in after Luffy, followed closely by Robin and Zoro.

Luffy stood in the annexe, grinning ear to ear at the sight before him. There were three ways he could go, three adventures he could have, plus a staircase, leading to even more places to explore upstairs.

He went down the corridor straight ahead to look around in the back. "Luffy, you can't just run into places without knowing what's there!" Chopper chastised.

"Eh? But that's what we do all the time!" Luffy exclaimed, slowing down as they entered the door leading to another corridor that ran through the back of the house. The corridor branched off into two bedrooms and another door close to the entrance that was locked.

Chopper gasped and covered his nose with his hooves as Luffy entered the first bedroom on the right. "L-Luffy, it smells like blood. I think something bad happened here."

Luffy sniffed and shrugged his shoulders, "it smells a bit weird, but there's no blood around. Are you sure?"

Chopper looked over his shoulder and studied the room around them. It was true. Nothing looked out of place, and there certainly wasn't any blood anywhere. But… his nose did not lie. Something definitely happened in that room.

"I'm going to check out the other room," Chopper said finally, wanting to get out of the room. He jumped off Luffy's shoulder and hurried through the door as Luffy waved him off, already lost in the various knick-knacks on the bookshelf.

The bedroom Chopper went into was hardly better, but it was a bit easier to deal with. The smell of blood wasn't nearly as strong. On the desk, he found a note that said: Repair the leaky toilets, refill the first aid kit on the second floor, fix the piano keys. He shrugged, put the note in his pocket, and went to look at the rest of the room.

He took in a deep breath, and slowly let it out, the frown that has been present since they entered the house becoming deeper. Despite the fact that the room smelt like it should be covered under layers upon layers of dust, blood and mould, it was absolutely spotless.

He swiped his hoove across the surface of a nearby bookshelf and it came up clean. Chopper couldn't ignore the sense of dread that was filling his entire body and left to go meet up again with Luffy. He didn't want to be in the mansion any longer than he needed to, and he certainly didn't want to be alone.

He walked to the door of where Luffy was and said, "We should go check on the others. Maybe there are cooler things on the other side of the house?" Luffy agreed, already bored with the room he was looking through, and the two of them walked to the front door to see where everyone else had found.

Only Robin remained in the annexe. She was sitting on a chair that had been placed by the front door and was flipping through a book of spells. The same look of concentration she normally had when she did important research was on her face.

The book was not one Chopper recognised and where Robin could have gotten it from Chopper couldn't even begin to have guessed. She certainly didn't have it on her when they arrived. He would remember the smell of that particular book, covered with magic as it was. He jumped onto Robin's shoulder and sniffed the book. It was similar to the scent he had caught earlier when they were walking. Why hadn't he noticed earlier that what he had smelt was magic?

"Where did Zoro and Franky go?" Luffy asked, looking around for their two friends.

"They went upstairs," Robin replied, snapping the book shut. "There is a Library just over there, I went to check it out. They have quite a fascinating selection on the Occult."

Sulfur filled Chopper's nostrils and he began to sneeze erratically. The smell of death, old blood and burnt burn followed the smell and he had to force himself to not get sick. He jumped onto Luffy's shoulders and wrapped his arms tightly around Luffy's head and pulled on his mouth, "Something's wrong." From Robin and Luffy's alarmed reactions, Chopper wagered a guess that he was the only one who could smell what was happening around them. Although in hindsight, Luffy's reaction might have more to do with Chopper grabbing his mouth and refusing to let go

"Cwoppur - wah?!" Luffy struggled to get the wriggly reindeer off him when suddenly the lights around them flickered. In the confusion, Luffy caught movement from the corner of his eye. Just as he was about to turn toward it, assuming it was either Franky or Zoro, he was thrown into the front door. The full force of his body landed on Chopper, and pushed Robin off her chair, causing it to skitter across the shiny wooden floor and leave gouges in its wake. The last thing Luffy saw were two black onyx eyes staring at him through the flickering lights before they were plunged into complete darkness.

o0o

Something was definitely off. Normally, the sense of danger wouldn't bother Zoro, but that was because he was used to knowing what he was getting into, in some capacity. He also knew he could fight whatever it was. Now, he wasn't so sure. Everything looked perfectly normal, and that had his radar going off. This place was much worse than when he lived with Mihawk and Perona in that damned castle.

"There is something off about this place," Franky said as he ascended the stairs behind Zoro. He had to duck his head to avoid hitting it on the ceiling and was already looking a bit agitated.

Zoro grunted in affirmation, his arms crossed over his chest as he waited for Franky at the top of the stairs. "Magic of some sort," he stated after a moment.

"It would have been a good idea to bring Usopp with us," Franky commented. He scowled, as he went up the last step and hit his head on the ceiling.

The swordsman snorted, "that scaredy-cat wouldn't step foot near this place if you paid him."

Franky rubbed his forehead and shrugged his left shoulder, "he's the only one who would be able to make sense of what we are feeling." He paused in front of a door and sniffed strongly his brow furrowing. "Although. Robin is good at reading runes and knows quite a bit about magic herself… do you smell that?"

Zoro breathed in deeply. The familiar smell of old blood filled his nostrils, but not the kind he was used to smelling. It smelt more… burnt than he was used to. There was also an underlying scent of something else, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it… bone, perhaps?

It wasn't something he was good at, picking up smells from magic, or potions, or whatever. That was entirely Robin's and to a newer extent, Usopp's thing. Ever since they visited the Village of the Seer's and his powers were completely awakened.

The Village of the Seers was an island that the crew had stayed on for 2 months. There they learned everything they could about magic to prepare themselves for Raftel. On their travels, they began to hear rumours of some sort of curse on the island. It is said that the curse needs to be broken in order to get the One Piece. Not wanting to take any chances Nami and Robin had, somehow, convinced Luffy that it was better to be prepared in the face of magic than unprepared. Especially since none of them had any experience with it.

Zoro, as sad as he was to admit it, was hard-pressed to say he got much out of the experience other than more swordsman training. Not that he was going to complain. He never had the experience of fighting a swordsman that used magic and was happy for the chance to practice. But, outside of that, he felt pretty useless.

The smell of the potions that they were taught to make to counteract curses among other things, made him nauseated to the point that he couldn't eat or drink anything for the rest of the day. This meant that he couldn't help in the creation of them.

He couldn't make heads or tails of runes, so he was useless for research. And when he encountered the centre of a place's magic, the core as it was called, turned him around so badly that the first time he encountered one he couldn't tell anyone his name for over an hour after getting out of it. Apparently, it was a 'good thing' that he was sensitive to a magic's core. It was an important part of unravelling it. There were very few people who could.

As much as it made sense that Zoro couldn't connect with magic as well as one would hope, it made perfect sense that Usopp, and to a certain extent Robin, could. The kid did come up with wild stories that came true. Being a seer definitely was a better explanation than the one the crew had come up with originally. Zoro chuckled as he remembered them all sitting around a table discussing Usopp's uncanny ability. Usopp manipulating reality, what had they been on?

And Robin, well, she could already read Poneglyphs, so magic runes were simple enough for her to master. She didn't have the magic to actually do anything with what she learned, but with her reading the runes and Usopp doing the magic, they made a formidable team.

"Zoro-bro?" Franky asked after several moments of silence. If Zoro was feeling lost, he could only imagine what Franky was feeling. The guy had no 'sense' at all.

Zoro rubbed the back of his head, "smells like someone lit a fire recently."

Franky hummed in agreement, "maybe someone had the same idea as us?" He shivered, "but I don't see why they would want to. It feels so dead here."

Zoro paused, his eyes widening a bit. So that had been the other thing he had was feeling. He scowled at himself then, feeling a bit stupid. He had lived with Perona for two years! He should have realised that he couldn't sense spirits or anything in the house. Zoro was getting too complacent if he couldn't sense things he had been around for two damn years.

"I'm going upstairs, are you coming?" Zoro said shortly, already beginning to walk up the stairs to the third floor.

Franky shook his head. "I think I'll explore down here. Meet back here in 15 minutes?"

Zoro raised a hand in acknowledgement and climbed the stairs, leaving Franky alone on the second floor. He could see flickers of golden spellwork on the walls, faint, so faint that if he hadn't been specifically looking for it he wouldn't have even noticed. Whatever spells were on this house were old, very old. Even someone like him, with barely any 'sight', could see that.

He tried the door immediately to the right of the stairwell and walked in. It was a Library, quite large for one in a home. Zoro was willing to bet it was larger than the one on the Sunny, and he was certain their collection was one of the biggest onboard a ship sailing the seas.

There were five rows of books and each row had six bookcases and each bookcase held between seventy-five to a hundred books. "Those three would have the time of their lives in this place," Zoro muttered to himself as he ran his hands over the spines of various Navigation, Engineering and Historical books. From the corner of his eye, he saw that there was an entire bookshelf of cookbooks and another just on swordsmanship. Interesting, but not enough to keep him there any longer.

He exited and went to the room that was off on the far left wall, by the stairway. He stopped, his hand on the doorknob and swallowed. "Fuck," he muttered to himself, whatever was in that room ran the entirety of magic for the house. Zoro was sure of it. What the fuck it was actually anchored too, he had no damn idea, but it was definitely the epicentre.

He had never felt so sick in his life, his head was swimming and he was confused beyond belief. Through sheer will, he swallowed and opened the door to reveal a white piano in the middle of a white room. He gripped the wall as he felt himself sway. He wouldn't be able to enter the room.

This room of magic was way stronger than any core of magic he had felt when training on Seer Island. Maybe Franky and Luffy would be able to go in and check it out as they seemed to be wholly unaffected by magic if their time on the island was any indication. Perhaps Chopper too, depending on the type of magic. He seemed to be sensitive to some types more than others.

Zoro slammed the door shut and hurried up the stairs to the fourth floor, desperate to get rid of the nauseated feeling rising in his throat and the dizziness overcoming his body. He almost sighed in relief when the smell of old burnt blood filled his nostrils. That he could handle.

He took a deep breath and peeked into the first room he saw. There wasn't much there except a lever on the wall and a note beside it that read:

"Above is Heaven,

In the Middle Earth Lies,

Underneath it is Hell."

Both might be a curious decorative choice, but there was nothing that set off any alarm bells in Zoro's mind. What did interest him was that this room was directly above the epicentre so he should feel some of the residue magic, but he didn't. He made a note to talk to Robin about it when they met back up and moved onto the other room across the corridor.

The door opened and revealed a red majestic chair at the far wall. Zoro frowned, he recognized it as one similar to the one that he saw during their time on Seer Island. It had been cursed if he remembered correctly.

He turned towards the crooked bookcase in the far corner of the room when he heard Luffy's yell of "Gum Gum Gatling!" and Chopper's scream of fear. He ran out the door and down the stairs, stopping at the second floor to look for Franky. Of course, he was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone downstairs already. Zoro quickly moved through the corridor, looking for the stairwell that led downstairs.

On his way, he checked all the rooms that would open to make sure Franky wasn't still up there. When he entered the final room he paused, his eyes scanning the room before landing on the huge fireplace in the back.

The burnt smell of bone and old blood was strongest in the fireplace than any other place in the house. As curious as that was, he needed to check on his friends. Zoro could easily come back later with the others to check it out. He was about to leave the room when he caught sight of what was in the fireplace.

"Sanji's… clothes!?"

He ran across the room and quickly picked out the remnants of Sanji's suit, tie and jacket. They were charred, but even that couldn't disguise the smell of the soaked blood in the fabric. Nor could it hide the fact that it was definitely one of Sanji's tailored suits.

That didn't make any sense. The cook was back at the ship. How the fuck would he be at the mansion? There had to be another explanation for why the pervert-cook's clothes were in the fireplace. But what?

He swallowed down his sense of fear and tucked the clothes under his arm before he stood. He needed to get downstairs to Luffy and the others. At this time he could only deal with what he knew was true, which was that something was happening downstairs. After they deal with that, he can look into why Sanji's clothes were in a fireplace in a mansion he never set foot in.

Zoro quickly made his way through the labyrinth of the corridors before finally finding the stairwell that led downstairs. As he descended the stairs, anxiety began to fill him and the sick feeling in his stomach began to return. Just as he landed on the last step of the staircase he was blinded, and he blindly grabbed at the rail of the stairs to keep himself steady.

Before him stood Luffy, Robin and Chopper- he knew because he could hear their alarmed voices. From what he could tell Robin and Chopper were pinned by the door and Luffy was blocking the stairwell he was on. He squinted, his eyes flashing as he tried to use his haki to compensate for his temporary blindness. While it wasn't nearly as strong as it would normally be, he was able to make out a grey-skinned monster with a huge head and even huger black eyes standing in the middle of the annexe. The energy of the house seemed to be wrapped around its entire body like a blanket, covering it in a blinding white light.

Luffy looked over his shoulder at Zoro, a serious expression marring his usually happy face. "Zoro, stand back. You can't see very well, can you?"

Despite Luffy not having the 'sight' as the seers called it, he was disturbingly in touch with what was happening around him and how it affected the ones with it. When the seer's found out, they had been ecstatic. It was rare that someone with no sight at all would be able to sense how other's with the sight were affected. An empathy that would likely keep them all safe if they were to encounter a serious situation involving magic. Like now.

Chopper had transformed, but from what Zoro could gather, the reindeer seemed to have trouble keeping his form and as a result, kept switching from his usual form to his bigger form and back again, not staying in one form for more than a few seconds at a time.

The monster, thing, whatever it was, had one of Robin's knives embedded in its skull, at the temple, but that didn't seem to bother whatever the fuck was in front of them in the least.

He had to do something, he couldn't just stand there. Zoro dropped Sanji's suit on the floor and pulled his swords out. Shakily, he jumped around Luffy, and slashed at the monster, using his haki as best as he could to avoid the others.

The monster gave a screech and lashed its hand out, throwing Zoro clean across the corridor, almost into the Kitchen. It hurt like a bitch, but the space between him and that thing allowed his head to clear, and he could focus more easily. While his sight had not come back completely, he could see the blurry outlines of his friends.

While the monster was distracted, Luffy extended his body and began wrapping his legs around the monster's own without it seeing him.

Robin seemed to have some book in hand and was quickly flipping through pages. Odd time for a bit of reading, Zoro thought, but it didn't seem like anything else affected the monster. Maybe she could read the fucking thing to death.

Suddenly, Robin let out an anguished scream. Zoro squinted and widened his eyes in shock. The magic that surrounded the monster was racing out to Robin and was trying to intertwine with hers and pull it from her body.

She was quick to two the book to the ground and pull out the gun hidden on her thigh. She squeezed the trigger and hit the monster square between the eyes.

The creature snarled and reached a claw up to its forehead to fish out the bullet. The wound healed on the spot, leaving not a mark behind.

Zoro twirled his sword in his hand and was about to bolt at the monster when it suddenly locked eyes with him, stunning him into stillness. As the monster began to bolt at him, he lost more and more of his sight until all he could see was white light.

He cursed and tensed, closing his eyes tightly. He held his swords in front of him and called for his haki to help him locate the monster. However, his haki wasn't cooperating and he couldn't sense anything. If he didn't do something soon he would -

The creature skidded to a halt and screamed a terrorizing yell. Zoro blindly looked around him, but he still couldn't see anything. However, he could feel the heat of fire suddenly flare up in front of him. "Are you okay?" a voice asked in front of him, and it was then that Zoro knew that Sanji had arrived.

Zoro couldn't reply and merely gave the cook a nod. His sight suddenly came flooding back to him when Sanji rushed at the monster and sent it flying over Luffy's head and into the stairwell. It disappeared, taking all of the magic that filled the room with it. Sanji kneeled the fire on his legs put out as he gasped for breath.

They all studied the spot where the monster disappeared for several moments before relaxing. It wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.

Sanji stood and cracked his back before smiling at them. "Is everyone okay?" He helped Robin up and reached down to grab the book she dropped. He had just enough time to hand the book back to her before his arms were full of a wailing Chopper. He hugged the reindeer and held him close while he talked to the others. "You guys must be exhausted. I imagine you met that thing more times than I have considering you've been here a couple of days."

"The fuck you talking about, Cook?" Zoro asked as he sheathed his swords. He still felt extremely confused and while his sight had come back, it was still a bit blurry around the edges.

Robin threw Sanji a curious look, "we've only been here about an hour."

Luffy sat on the steps and blew up his cheeks, "yeah! How did you guys get here so quickly!? It took us hours and when we left you were all going back to the ship."

Sanji narrowed his eyes at the captain, then turned to look at the others for confirmation on what Luffy was saying. Zoro, Robin and Chopper nodded in agreement.

Sanji sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair. "We need to let Usopp and Law know that we found you." He put his hands in his pocket and nodded upstairs. "We have a room on the second floor that is safe. Let's get there before that damn thing comes back."

A sense of foreboding filled Zoro as he ascended the stairs behind the others. He paused and made sure to grab Sanji's burnt suit. An explanation was definitely in order.

To be continued...

No warnings

Is it Raftel still, or are we all going with Laugh Tale now, spelling wise? Let me know so I can correct it if need be.

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!

Best,
Chandlure